


Aurora

by danielleargent



Series: Alternate Marvel Universe Saga [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:35:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29200698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danielleargent/pseuds/danielleargent
Summary: "for a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. so collapse. crumble. this is not your destruction. this is your birth."✴︎Being a shield agent is all Rory has. They saved her from the worst moments of her life and as a result, she committed her life to SHIELD.She's an invaluable agent, for reasons that often went unspoken.In fact, that's how she got on Coulson's team. Little did she know that she was about to be in for the ride of her life.
Relationships: Grant Ward/Original Character(s), Grant Ward/Original Female Character(s)
Series: Alternate Marvel Universe Saga [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2143893
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. it seems nothing is impossible

_"Nothing is impossible."_  
\- Unknown

✴︎

Aurora "Rory" Krueger had been involved with SHIELD in one way or another for almost half her life, and she'd definitely seen some shit in those years.

It's all too typical—a spy with a tragic past. Rory had met enough spies with similar backstories that she had already accepted her past as a cliché. Though where her life differed made her day-to-day all the more strange. Yeah, there was PTSD and pain, but all she'd gone through had something extra and not in a good way.

The healthy thing to deal with her past was to...well, _deal with it._ But alas, she was a spy who'd spent most of her life with spies.

Her surrogate mother had taught her the favoured tactic among covert operatives; admittedly, it hadn't been intentional.

That tactic was a treasured favourite among spies. The whole bury-it-so-deep-that-your-conscious-mind-is-no longer-aware-of-it thing.

Her second strategy for dealing with the tough shit was a much healthier thing that her surrogate father had taught her.

_Take a break._

After the last couple of years that she'd had, she'd been becoming quite fond of the whole "break" thing.

So, that's how Rory had found herself taking a couple of days off, staying in her New York apartment and shopping. Even though she was taking some time, that didn't quite turn off the paranoia and hyper-vigilance that came with the life of a spy.

This was why there was a small knife that was hidden in her boot and another strapped around her calve. Her handgun of choice was tucked into her waistband, which went unnoticed, thanks to her jacket.

A day of shoe shopping later, and Rory was unlocking the door to the apartment that she spent not enough time in to justify the price of rent. As a spy, you'd think she'd be a little smarter with her money.

She was not because she wasn't totally void of being sentimental.

Operations tried to rid her of that, to make her a machine. Obviously, it didn't work because who the fuck rents an apartment in New York to be there only a couple of weeks a year.

As she closed the door and locked it behind her, she heard a creak. More than a creak, actually.

 _Can't catch a goddamn break._ Rory thought moodily, silently putting down the bags in her hands. She lifted her shirt slightly to grab the small handgun in her waistband. Taking the safety off and raising her weapon, Rory crept around the corner, prepared to pull the trigger.

She almost did because of the shock she felt at who it was. Who it _seemed_ to be.

It couldn't be.

"You're dead," Rory said firmly, holding her gun comfortably as she was fully prepared to blow the intruder's brains out.

Call her crazy, but people don't come back to life. Not all the way, anyway.

So Phil Coulson, Agent of SHIELD, should not be standing in her living room, looking at one of the photos on her shelf.

"It was only for a minute."

"I was there, Coulson. You were gone for longer than that. So either you are someone utilizing tech to pretend to be Coulson, or you are Coulson, but I should put you back in the ground."

"It's nice to see you, too, Rory."

"People never come back right. You're not Coulson, not fully."

"Rory, I promise it's me. I bleed, I feel pain, I feel emotions. And I didn't die long enough for Fury to decide to do necromancy on me."

"How do you even know that word?"

Coulson gestured to one of the books on the table.

"Some weird stuff in those books. You sure you believe all of it?"

"What do you think?" Rory's grip on her gun didn't waver in the slightest. "What did I say to you when I first told you I was going to the Academy?"

"That you knew that you should be in Communications because you recognize graphemes of different alphabets that most people didn't know existed and you would be most useful as an expert or a consultant, but you wanted to be in Operations because you wanted to save people. You wanted to prevent what happened to you from happening to anyone else." Coulson paused for a moment. "Did I pass?"

"What's my favourite language?"

"You know I can't pronounce it."

"Try," Rory ordered tensely.

"Kosuh."

"Xhosa," Rory repeated, this time pronouncing it correctly. She lowered her gun and put the safety on. Then she put it down and went to hug Coulson. "I don't know how this is possible."

"Come on, Rory. You, of all people, should accept impossibilities."

"I know...I just...I swore you were out long enough that you couldn't be saved. How were you brought back?"

"There was a lot of hospital time. I'm a little hazy on the details."

"You couldn't call, text, email? We live in 2013, Coulson. The internet is a thing."

"It's classified information for agents under level 7. So, welcome to level 7, Agent Krueger."

"I put in for no contact work leave."

"Hence the house call."

"Are you aware of what no contact means, sir?"

"Vaguely, but I have an offer that couldn't wait," Coulson explained, in perhaps the vaguest way that he could. If there's one thing that was a universal trait among spies, it was their flair for the dramatic.

"An offer. I thought SHIELD only gave orders."

"SHIELD does, but this is different. Fury's giving me a plane and a team with no red tape. Sort of apologies you died and came back to life thing."

"I didn't realize Director Fury was that nice."

"His kindness is circumstantial. Anyway, I have some bunks that need filling. I was hoping you'd take one."

"As a specialist or expert of weird?"

"I was thinking a combo." Coulson.

Rory looked at Coulson in thought. She was very annoyed that her vacation seemed to be getting cut short but then again...she did hate red tape.

"Who else have you got in your line up?"

Coulson smiled and put a folder on the table.

"I was hoping you'd ask."

Rory opened the folder and scanned the first profile.

"Agent Jemma Simmons, biochemist, one of the most brilliant minds to come out of the Sci-Tech division. She's young and hasn't been field-tested, but she plays well with others." Rory flipped to the next profile. "Agent Leo Fitz, engineer and one of the other most brilliant minds to come out of the Sci-Tech division. Also hasn't been field-tested. Fitz-Simmons are kind of a package deal since they worked their way through the Academy together."

"Either of them have experience with the foreign stuff?"

"Not really, but they're quick studies. I was counting on you to be present for the foreign stuff?"

"Ah, brush up on my science. Got it."

"Good. Now the last two...you know them pretty well."

The next profile caused a flood of emotions in Rory. Melinda May, her former SO. Then again, former SO didn't really cover how much May had changed Rory's life.

"May? She out in the field again?"

"Not yet," Coulson answered.

"May'll hate that you said yet," Rory pointed out.

"I figured you'd be on board for nudging her in that direction. Until then, we both know that she's an excellent pilot."

The last profile caused some new emotions to stir in Rory. She couldn't help the wry smile that graced her lips.

"Ward?" Rory asked in a very "you-can't-be-serious" tone of voice.

"He's good."

"He's a robot," Rory replied, emphasizing the point just in case Coulson hadn't read Ward's evaluation.

"I don't know what happened on your last mission with him-"

"-you read the report, sir-"

"-and I know you. Gifted people tend to go missing around you. So whatever happened, deal with it, bury it, doesn't matter. I need you and Ward to get along because you were the best damn team that SHIELD had in a long time."

Rory is quiet for a moment, weighing her options. This assignment was unlike anything she'd ever been offered, and she'd be a damn fool not to take it.

"Sir, when do you need me?"

Rory couldn't deny the worry that churned in her gut. There was a reason that she and Ward hadn't spoken in years.

"0800 tomorrow."

✴︎

Rory walked onto the big, shiny plane that the Director had just given Coulson, and she was thoroughly impressed by it. Her bag was slung over her shoulder, and she was carrying a solid case.

Rory headed straight to the lab where Fitz-Simmons were setting up.

"Fitz-Simmons?"

"Fitz."

"Simmons."

"I've been told that you need to encode my comm receiver," Rory said, handing it to Fitz. He took it and promptly smashed it, sifting through the pieces for something in particular.

"That's a new way of encoding something," Rory quipped with a raised eyebrow.

"Well..." Fitz glanced up, stopping in his tracks a little bit when he saw her. He cleared his throat, his body language managing to get more awkward. "Well, you don't really need an external receiver anymore."

"The inner ear comms are embedded sensorineural silicone matched to your DNA," Simmons explained with a proud smile.

"And just like that, I have entered the future of espionage. Got anything else?"

"We have the night-night gun-" Fitz began excitedly before he was immediately cut off Simmons.

"We're not calling it that."

"-yes, we are!"

Rory cleared her throat, which thankfully stopped them from launching into a full-scale argument.

"It has 0.1 microliters of dendrotoxin," Simmons continued. Rory mentally sifted through her science knowledge, trying to place the word.

"So it...causes instant paralysis?" Rory asked carefully, unsure if she'd remembered the right information or not. To the agent's relief, Simmons nodded.

"Exactly."

"Cool. I'm Rory, by the way. I'm the...expert of weird around here. Which is basically linguistics, aliens, superpowers and all the things you thought didn't exist."

"Oh, we know."

"You were one of the consultants on Project Pegasus."

"It wasn't a lot of consulting. Just me telling Director Fury that I wanted no part in the project because messing with the Tesseract wouldn't end up well for anyone."

"What did you see?"

"Excuse me?

"Well, you must've seen something that made you oppose the project. If the Tesseract project had been successful, it would've been an unlimited power source."

"Therein lies the first problem. Unlimited energy sounds nice, but the Tesseract? It's alien, and we didn't know the consequences of using it. But that power...I don't think humans can be trusted with that power."

"You suggesting we entrust it to the aliens?"

"Some of them. On Asgard, Odin keeps a vault of things just like the Tesseract, never to be used. Somethings...just shouldn't be used. Scientific discovery is great until it...it isn't." Then Rory cleared her throat. "Sorry, I should go put my stuff away. It was nice meeting you guys."

Rory headed up the small, spiral stairs to get up to the next floor where the common areas and bunks were. She figured out which one was unoccupied and stowed away her stuff. Then she stepped out and realized that her old partner was on that same floor.

A brief moment where she looked at him and remembered the years they'd spent working together. The Academy, then all those assignments together.

But the memories came to a grinding halt with the recollection of November 2nd, 2010.

The air grew chilly, but it seems they were both under orders to be civil.

"Hey, Ward."

"Krueger."

It seemed getting along was a ways away. Coulson would have to settle for that interaction and similar future ones.

✴︎

Once they were up in the air, Rory went to join May in the cockpit. A flicker of a smile registered on May's face.

A flicker might be too generous. May's expression changed so subtly that if Rory hadn't spent several years living with May, she might've thought that May was annoyed to see her.

"Did you know?" Rory asked quietly after a pause.

"Know what?"

"Coulson. Did you know he was alive?"

May's lack of response provided her answer. Rory nodded slowly, looking at the open skies. Then her gaze shifted back to May.

"May, people don't...people shouldn't come back from something like that. Loki's sceptre is a powerful artifact, aside from the fact that Coulson was stabbed through the heart. I'm worried about how he was brought back."

"Don't be."

"You know that's not my style, May."

Another silence. Then May spoke again, knowing the stealthy plans that Rory was attempting to form.

"You won't find anything in SHIELD files about how he was brought back."

"That's not worrying to you?"

"I'm keeping an eye on him."

Rory sensed that it was the end of the conversation. She settled back in the chair, her mind now deeply at unrest.

"You sure you and Ward can work together?" May asked. She was probably the only person on the planet who knew an inkling about what had happened on that last mission.

"Not at all," Rory admitted. "But there's a formerly dead guy asking me to work with Ward."


	2. an ex-something

_"No, we didn't date. Technically, he wasn't an ex-boyfriend. But he was an ex-something, an ex-maybe. An ex-almost."_  
\- Unknown

✴︎

They'd been in the sky for only moments; it seemed before they had their very first briefing. A briefing not unlike the one, she imagined, that Coulson and May had attended before they'd found her all those years ago.

However, Rory did know that this individual's circumstances weren't the same as hers had been. 

"We've got an enhanced without an ID, but the Rising Tide, self-proclaimed hacktivists uploaded the video. This cryptographic signature matches a few of the other posts, and thanks to some of SHIELD's hacking, we tracked it down," Coulson began, pulling up the footage for everyone to see. "Ward, Krueger, I want you with me for the hacker. May, I need you to take Fitz-Simmons to the explosion site so they can work their magic."

"It's not magic, sir. It's science."

"You forget, Coulson, magic is what I do," Rory said with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. 

"Magic isn't real," Ward interrupted, a pointed look on his face. Rory bristled for a brief moment, but then her shoulders grew at ease, and the corners of her mouth upturned.

"And you're still no fun," Rory quipped. The tension could be cut with a knife.

"Maybe Agent Krueger would be of more assistance to us, sir," May suggested, her eyes warily scanning between Rory and Ward.

"Ward and Krueger are all grown up. They can learn to work together again, can't they?" Coulson looked at Rory and Ward. Rory glanced briefly at Ward and then back at Coulson, a neutral expression on her face.

"Yes, sir."

Ward nodded his head once in agreement with Rory. 

"Sir."

"Good. Let's get going."

To Ward and Rory's credit, they did act very grown-up and push their emotions down. The tension was almost undetectable. It was quite impressive. 

But it was also a massive relief when they...to put it nicely, acquired the hacker who had posted the video. With someone to focus on, they could delude themselves into forgetting about the unsaid words entirely. 

However, the fact that the hacker was based in a crappy little van was something that Rory hadn't quite called for. Rory's fault; apparently, she had some previously unforeseen stereotypes about hackers.

The hacker was also a young woman. A pretty young woman, which also didn't fit the idea of guy-living-in-his-mom's-basement in Rory's head. She was placed into the plane's containment room immediately.

Coulson, Ward and Rory went back in a few moments later. Rory was equipped with a tablet, which she was running facial recognition on, trying to pull up anything she could on the hacker. 

"You need three people to interrogate me?" The girl asked, seemingly amused by the fact that she was that important. 

"Oh, _they're_ here to interrogate you. I'm here for reasons undecided," Rory answered, a relatively unfriendly expression on her face. The girl seemed much more uneasy now, but that was before Ward started in on her. 

"Okay, there are two ways we can do this," Ward began. Rory had also pulled up a blank file to take notes on the interrogation.

"Oh, is one of them the easy way?" Rory bit back a smile. This girl was a so-called "hacktivist," but Rory was guessing that she was good enough that this was the first time she was caught. So she was playing it tough, well, as tough as she could. 

"No," Ward answered in his deadpan voice. The girl seemed a little disappointed that she was incorrect.

"What's your name?" Coulson asked.

"Skye."

Rory updated the file that she had open on the tablet.

"What's your real name?"

There was a flash of worry, of panic on Skye's face. Maybe she was running from something, or maybe she didn't have a name. Not a name that she could call hers anyway.

"That can wait. It's another name we need, a certain hero," Coulson said seriously. 

"What makes you think I know that?" Skye asked, playing dumb. 

Good liar. Just not good enough.

"Well, you made a little mistake. The phone you filmed the hooded hero with had the same cryptographic signature as a few of the Rising Tide posts."

If it threw her off, she didn't show it. 

"Wow. Yeah. Was that a mistake? Or am I now sitting in the centre of your secret headquarters? What is this? A plane? I got inside. And, by now, you've discovered you can't beat the encryption on my equipment, so you got nothing."

She had a whole lot of gumption; Rory could give her that. 

"We have a fairly strong coincidence. You being on the scene right before it went up in flames. Want to tell me what my team is gonna find out? How did you know the hooded man was in the building?" Coulson asked, showing her the lovely pictures that they had on file. 

"Did you blow it up to draw him out?" Ward had his arms crossed over his chest and a wary look in his eyes.

"Did you?"

"That's not our style." Coulson.

"I was just kidnapped by your "style". S.H.I.E.L.D. covered up New Mexico, Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. Of course, you'd be covering up Centipede." For highly-trained spies, they didn't do very well of covering up their confusion. Ward looked at Coulson and then at Rory, silently asking them if they knew what she was talking about. "Holy- No way. You don't know what that is. Billions of dollars of equipment at your disposal, and I beat you with a laptop I won in a bet?"

Rory clicked out of the file she'd been starting and started searching across all SHIELD files for even a remote reference to Centipede. 

"You need to think about your friend. We're not the only ones interested in people with powers. We'd like to contain him, yeah. The next guy will want to exploit him, and the guy after that will want to dissect him."

"What is Centipede?"

The power in the room shifted slightly. Skye felt comfortable to stand and move around the room a little bit.

"Centipede, it was chatter on the web and then, gone. I traced the access point MAC address to that building."

Ward was now sitting, and he looked at her.

"What were you after?"

"The truth. What are you after?"

"World peace. You pseudo-anarchist hacker types love to stir things up," An annoyed tone in Ward's voice. He stood and crossed the room until he was standing in front of her. "But you're never around for the fallout. People keep secrets for a reason, Skye."

Rory listened to Ward's words and let them echo in her head. Maybe...maybe...it was secrets that could force Skye to open up.

Despite Ward's accusations and the fact that he was now attempting to tower over Skye, the hacker didn't back down. 

**"** Well, just because you're reasonable and..." Skye paused, giving Ward a push. Her eyes drifted to his chest before going back to his face. "Firm... doesn't mean that you're not an evil, faceless government tool bag."

"Touché," Rory spoke up. Her eyes shifted to Coulson, asking silent permission to try a new tactic. "But Skye, you have to let us help him. He has people he loves, and I'm sure they'd prefer him alive and under SHIELD's watch than being dissected in a lab."

"SHIELD's watch? Yeah, cause that sounds so great."

"Skye...trust me when I say that SHIELD's watch isn't such a terrible place. If this guy didn't use his powers or kept a low profile, we wouldn't be seeking him out. But he used his powers in public, probably for the first time. He has no idea what danger he just put himself in and his loved ones. I want to protect him."

" _You_ want to protect him? What if SHIELD doesn't want that?"

"SHIELD does. I know because I was someone that SHIELD helped. They saved my life, and I would've had a normal one if I didn't want to join SHIELD to save others from what I suffered."

Well, technically, her life still wouldn't have been "normal". You know, because she was under the legal guardianship of an Agent of SHIELD. 

Nevertheless, it was true enough, and Rory was convincing Skye slightly.

"How did SHIELD save you? And how do I not know you're lying to me?" Skye asked. Rory looked at Coulson, and it's almost like he had the same idea at the same time. 

"Ward," Coulson said, nodding for Ward to leave the room with him.

"To be fair, you don't. I am an excellent liar. But, Coulson is getting something right now that will help us...trust each other."

Coulson came back in with a case. He held out a vial of green liquid to Skye. 

"This is QNB-T16. It's the top shelf martini of sodium pentothal derivatives," Coulson began to explain. Then he opened the case to pull out the gun that would deliver the drug. Ward put a hand on Skye's shoulder, assuming that the drug was going to her. Skye seemed uneasy.

"It's a brand new and extremely potent truth drug. Don't worry. The effects only last about an hour."

"But the hour does suck," Rory added, taking the gun from Coulson. Skye shifted uncomfortably; the look in her eyes suggested she was going to bolt. 

But then, Rory made a move that surprised Skye. Rory stuck the needle in her own neck and administered the dose to herself.

"Why would you do that?" Ward asked, the words coming out before he could stop them.

"We're the ones with secrets, Ward, and we established that Skye doesn't like secrets. Ergo..." Rory gestured nonchalantly.

Coulson and Ward left, leaving Skye alone with a drugged-up Rory. 

"Ask your questions, Skye."

"How did SHIELD save you?"

"I'm gifted. Like, with a capital G. So someone captured me and tested on me to see what makes me tick. SHIELD saved me."

"Like Iron Man or Captain America?"

"Uh...there's not quite an Avenger that I can point to. See, here's the thing, Iron Man, had his billions to build his suits and Captain America was injected by a miracle drug, but I...oh no, I was born with it. My telekinesis. I don't use it much though, gives me headaches."

It was mostly true. There were certain...details that Rory omitted. The omission was pretty easy to pull off, especially since Operations specifically had a class for this. However, the headache detail was very true, and Rory did hate those headaches.

"Holy crap. Really?!" Skye asked, looking a little too excited. Then she gathered her composure. "Can I see?"

Rory took a deep breath and looked at the injection gun. She held out her hand, and despite her drugged state, she could lift it a few inches into the air. Then a pinching pain throbbed against her skull. 

Rory inhaled sharply, rubbing a hand on her temple in an attempt to soothe the pain. 

"Ohh...sorry. I just-"

"-wanted to see. Most people do. It's like a party trick at this point. That is its usefulness to me."

"Couldn't you...strengthen your powers?"

"My powers are why I needed saving. My captor wanted me to become stronger, and he wanted to use me. Why would I ever be stupid enough to give him what he wanted?" Rory's voice was cold, harsh. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's fine. I want you to trust me," Rory reigned in her anger. "Keep it going."

Skye looked hesitant now, not wanting to trigger any other reactions.

"What happened when SHIELD found you?"

"One of the agents, Melinda May, took me in. Gave me a home."

"Why'd you join SHIELD?"

"Felt right."

Then Skye decided to go in with the more serious questions.

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"A few."

"How'd it feel?"

"Not good. But they were going to hurt people. I didn't have a choice."

After a few questions, Skye's interests began to wander a little bit. She got this mischievous look on her face.

"You and Ward...was that tension?"

"It was tension," Rory responded, vaguely. So, Skye prompted some more information, clearly just for fun.

"Why?"

"Our last mission went wrong in a lot of ways."

"What happened?"

"Grant and I...we just didn't see eye to eye anymore."

"Grant," Skye repeated, almost meditating on the name. "You called him Ward earlier."

"Yeah, well, doesn't seem right to call him Grant anymore," Rory remarked quietly, looking at the table in thought. "I think I lost that privilege."

"Did you love him?"

"I don't know. Losing him really sucked, though."

"How'd you lose him?"

"I lied, and I know that probably seems insignificant because, well, I'm a spy and spies lie but...Gr..." Rory stopped herself and corrected the name she was about to say. "...Ward and I were always pretty honest with each other."

There was a silence. Skye looked like she wanted to pry further, but she stopped herself. Skye asked more questions about SHIELD until the drug took its most powerful side effect and knocked Rory out.


	3. everything is going to be alright

_"Everything is going to be alright, maybe not today but eventually."_  
\- Unknown

✴︎

Rory’s drug-induced slumber was cut short by Ward jolting her awake. He didn’t seem all that pleased that he was the one to do it.

"What did you say to her?" With his tone of voice, Rory could hazard a guess that Skye had either made some comments to Ward or given him some kind of look. Neither of which are things you should do to Grant Ward. She sat up, discomfort evident on her face.

"Oh," Rory answered groggily, a mild ping of a headache still there.

"Yeah, _oh_ ,” Ward said, glaring at her. “What'd you say?"

"Nothing, really. I just...said some things about me. My own feelings. About you. Don’t worry. I’m the only one who can be embarrassed by my overshare.”

A part of Ward wanted to ask what she said, but his professionalism covered up whatever part of him wanted that. He cleared his throat and informed his former partner,

"We've got a lock on the enhanced. Coulson wants you up."

"Right," Rory murmured, pushing her fingers against her temples. Ward got a look of realization on his face, a recollection of a memory.

Rory looked pointedly at Ward when their silence went on a moment too long.

"Was there something else, Ward?"

Ward shook his head and left. Rory watched him go, letting out a breath that she didn't realize she'd been holding in. Then she went to change before heading down to the lab.

Rory's eyes found Ward first, and he tossed something to her. She caught it instinctually and looked to see what it was.

A bottle of ibuprofen.

Well, she supposed, that was a good step to getting along. So she took two pills and went to where Coulson was.

"What do you want me to do, sir?"

"Your Gifted talk. Keep him calm and bring him in."

"What's the enhanced's name?"

"Mike Peterson."

"We've got any info on how he obtained his powers?"

"Well, Simmons is examining alien metal that was found on the scene."

"Science experiment. Got it," Rory answered, quite comfortable with jumping to that conclusion. After all, this wouldn't be the first group messing with alien tech following the Battle of New York.

Then Rory drifted her attention to Fitz, who was running around setting up something involving tech she couldn't begin to understand. Well, apparently, the complex technology all added up to a 3D hologram of the scene with audio that they'd obtained.

So from there, they watched how the building had blown up and how its source was nothing more than a man.

A man enhanced by unstable alien tech and god knows what else. In the moments before the man exploded, his veins lit up with an angry red.

"Extremis. It's new. Completely unstable."

"Made more unstable by chitauri metal and whatever else they put in the super cocktail," Rory added, biting her lip in thought. She'd also seen enough to know that intense emotions triggered all sorts of abilities, kind of like the anger in the man before he, you know, blew up a building.

 **"** So, any minute now Mike is gonna-" Before Fitz could finish his sentence, Simmons did it for him.

"He'll take out anyone within a two-block radius."

Coulson walked over to Ward and said,

 _"_ Well, you wanted a bomb."

There was a minute or two of silence in which the field agents watched the scientists work on their problem.

"Sir? He didn't explode because he was angry," Simmons began. Rory frowned; there goes her guess. "The two are connected, it's – it's kind of a chemical surge. But, calming him down will buy him a minute at most. He will detonate within the next few hours."

"Solution?"

"Isolate him, get him away from people?"

That wasn't the solution Coulson was looking for because he frowned and prompted a question for something else.

"Or?"

"Put a bullet through his brain," Fitz offered, a rather grim expression on his face.

"If he's dead, this irradiated metabolic process will stop," Simmons added, though she didn't seem terribly excited about the prospect.

"We need to come up with a third option. One that doesn't involve Mike's son losing a father," Coulson said, sending a short, pointed look towards Rory.

Now, she remained calm, but her mind was racing, trying to come up with a solution that only she could offer. She didn't have anything that would save Mike, just ways to protect everyone else if worse came to worse.

Maybe it was time to actually start reading her books again.

"We have a couple of hours, at most. There's no way that we could-"

"Don't ever tell me there's no way! It's on you. Get it done. May?" Then when Coulson was done talking to May, he turned to Rory. "Krueger, are you ready to buy time for Fitz-Simmons?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ward, Krueger, with me."

✴︎

Gunshots rang out, and then Mike Peterson was falling over the railing of the building’s second floor. He crashed down onto a vacant ticket booth, smashing it to bits with his impact. Rory looked at Coulson, who gave her a short nod.

Rory stepped towards Mike, who was getting up and was seemingly unharmed. Her gun was in her hand but pointed at the floor.

"Hey, Mike. Care to talk?" Rory asked. The man looked between her and the gun in her hand, an angry skepticism on his face.

“You normally bring guns to talks?"

Rory lowered her weapon to the floor and kicked it away. Then she raised her hands in surrender, keeping a calm exterior and taking a cautious step in his direction.

"Think that means anything? I know there are men everywhere waiting to put me down. I know how this plays out."

"No. You don't. If we wanted to put you down, we wouldn't be having this conversation. We have people working to save you, Mike. But to give them time for that, I need you to calm down. The last guy who wore that exploded."

"I'm not like that other guy. I'm – It matters who I am, inside, if I'm a good person, if I'm strong."

"It does matter. But the fact is, there's poison in your veins and your son..." Rory paused a moment, "...your son needs his father."

"You took him! You took my wife, my job, my house. You think this is killing me?!? All over, there's people being pushed down, being robbed. One of them tries to stand up, you got to make an example out of him."

Rory stepped forward but stopped when she saw Mike tense up again.

"Mike, I know what it's like to be angry. To have power but still feel helpless. My family, my life, it was stolen from me too. I joined SHIELD because I can help people. People like us. Gifted. You can be a hero, Mike, for your son. I just need you to stand down."

Mike laughed humourlessly, shaking his head at her.

"Gifted, is that what we are? You tell me it's killing me, and then you tell me it's a gift?"

“That’s what I said when I found out mine was killing me. But with SHIELD, I managed it, and I lived.” Rory paused, her lie tasting bitter in her mouth, but still, she went on. “I know you can make it through this, Mike, and you can have the life that you want.”

No sooner than when she ended her sentence, Mike was shot and down for the count. A million things ran through her head.

Then she ran to him and breathed a sigh of relief. It was not a bullet. Well, not a bullet by the standards that she'd come to know. It dissolved into his skin, and he was just unconscious. Simmons ran up to check on him.

Rory's gaze shifted to Ward, where he stood holding Fitz's night-night gun with Fitz by his side, and she swallowed hard. The churning in her gut didn't exactly go away, but somehow, someway, they'd done it. 

✴︎

Back at the Bus, Rory was sitting on the couch, holding a glass of alcohol in one of her hands. Had she been a normal person, she probably would be feeling a racing heart from the adrenaline of the whole thing.

After a long sigh, she put down the glass and picked her book up. It was leather-bound and aged, and when she opened it, the pages were filled with words that were far from English and diagrams that didn't make sense at first glance.

Rory's finger traced one of the diagrams, a diagram that she'd seen a very long time ago. Except then, the diagram had materialized in the real world.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, May.”

“You were my kid for a few years, Rory. You’re good at lying but not to me.”

“I think I’m still your kid, May.”

May couldn’t help but smile. An expression that disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

“SHIELD didn’t do anything for your powers. In fact, you let them believe that you lost your powers for years," May pointed out. Rory was tracing her finger across the surface of her book and avoiding eye contact with May.

“I told Mike what he needed to hear.”

“I know.” May paused, her eyes shifting to the book in Rory’s hands. “One of your mother’s books?”

Rory bit her lip, nodding her head.

“I just…feel like a coward. I have the potential to do amazing things. I don’t because of _him_. I am…28 years old and am still controlled by something that happened a decade and a half ago.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

“I have some reading to do,” Rory answered, lifting her book slightly. May nodded her head in approval and left Rory alone.

If she was going to do this, she should probably find a place to practice. A place not monitored by cameras because otherwise, she’d have some explaining to do.


	4. hopelessness

_"It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul."_   
_\- William Styron_

✴︎

**May 13, 2000**

387 days.

1 year and 22 days.

That was how long Rory had been here.

She was captured when she was 12, and she turned 13 in her captivity. In weeks, she would be 14, and at this point, she expected to still be there when that day rolled around.

Rory jabbed the sharp stone she'd found all those days ago into the wall to mark yet another day in confinement.

The quiet of her dull existence was interrupted when the door to her cell unlocked and was slammed open.

Her stomach dropped.

Her arms were grabbed, and she was hauled up to her feet. The hands holding her were gripping so tight that she could imagine purplish fingers shapes forming in her skin. Rory struggled against the strong guards, as she'd been doing for the past 387 days.

Though now, her struggle was more like half-hearted pulling.

"Please, I can't keep doing it!" Rory yelled out desperately. Her voice was hoarse, much against how her natural voice was supposed to sound. It could've been the lack of speaking or the dehydration or how the times that she was speaking, she was screaming like this.

The girl was dragged through the halls until they stopped in front of a door. A door that made her go limp and submissive.

It was a dull red, worn by age, but it was memorable enough to haunt her dreams. The door haunted her waking hours just as much.

Rory was very easily pulled into the room and locked into a chair. She kept her eyes trained on the floor, avoiding his intense gaze.

The man whose name she never knew, the Doctor who she knew to be the architect of her torment. Rory flinched as one of the attendants attempted to connect to the machine that would track her vitals.

"Miss Krueger, are you willing to cooperate today?"

Rory didn't answer, staring at a crack in the tiles as she thought about how nice it would be to be spontaneously struck by lightning. Maybe if she acted up enough, she wouldn't have to rely on weather impossibilities, and they would put her out of misery.

She looked up, a detectable quiver in her hands and noticeable fear on her face.

"No."

"Miss Krueger, you know what happens if you don't."

Rory looked at him, and she would never know what came over her that day. She looked at her restraints and tore them apart with nothing but her mind. When a guard ran to restrain her, Rory threw him across the room.

Her attempt at freedom was short-lived when she was hit with a taser.

Because of her stunt, the testing was forgotten and instead, she was punished. A punishment that stole the last bit of resilience that she had.

Which was why the next day, she doubted the rescue that was happening.

✴︎

**May 14, 2000**

The next day, Rory was in pain from the moment she woke up. Her shoulder was bandaged, and there was an unmistakable fear on her face.

Not to mention the fading migraine from yesterday.

Tears rolling down her face, Rory curled up in the corner of her shitty cot. She quietly cited the same prayer that she'd said since that very first day. Admittedly, she didn't know who she was praying to. Her upbringing had really confused her on that front, all the talk about dimensional energies and whatnot. All that she knew was that, in all myths and religions, if she prayed long enough and had enough faith, someone would _have_ to answer.

And maybe, just maybe, this was someone's way of answering.

Rory heard someone on the other side fiddling with the lock on her door. 

_Not again. Please not again._

The door swung open, and Rory saw someone whom she'd never seen before. A woman with emblems of some kind of bird on her shoulders and a gun in her hands.

Rory didn't move, and she didn't speak, just stared at this woman with skepticism. But hey, maybe she was going to be put out of her misery. Maybe today, it would all be over.

Rory wasn't privy to the thoughts that ran through the agent's head at that moment. First, it was confusion and worry. Why would a girl be locked up in this facility? A child. Then it was anger. Why was her shoulder bandaged? Why was she so afraid? 

The agent couldn't ask questions right now. This girl was terrified, and she needed to get out of here.

"I'm here to help you," The woman said, her voice much kinder than Rory had heard from anyone in a long time. "You're safe now."

In a voice that sounded fragile and a fraction from shattering, Rory looked at this agent and said,

"I don't believe you."

The agent was taken back by the girl's sharp South African accent which was out of place considering the facility's location.

"I'm from SHIELD. We're here to help and shut this place down."

_Shut this place down._

It felt like music to her ears. However, the music was drowned out by the constant repetition of _"It's a trick,"_ bouncing around in her mind.

It wasn't until she was sitting in the back of an ambulance with a shock blanket draped around her shoulders did she begin to believe it. The medic had already looked at her shoulder wound and rebandaged it. Then she was checked for any other injuries.

The medic tried to ask her some questions about what had happened to her, but she was still silent—eyes trained on the ground.

Since the medic wasn't getting anywhere, he decided to speak with the leading agents. 

"Agent May, Agent Coulson, she's not speaking. The bandage on her shoulder is covering what looks like a bullet wound, very fresh. She has some bruises as well, but I recommend she has a full examination."

Agent May and Agent Coulson looked at the girl. Then May decided to give it a try with her. 

"I'm Melinda. What's your name?"

Rory looked at Agent May, trying to evaluate what the harm would be if she did. After much internal debate, she finally said,

"Rory."

"Rory. Pretty name. Do you have a last name?"

Rory mustered up the courage to answer the next question,, but she clutched the blankets in her fists. 

"Krueger. Aurora Krueger." Strangely, saying her own name was reassuring. It made her feel human again. 

"But you prefer Rory?"

The girl nodded her head.

"Rory, can you tell me why you were in there?"

There were so many things that Rory could've said in that moment. So many lies she could've told to cover up the truth. The truth was too outlandish for this world to accept just yet. Rory knew the truth could get her in a whole lot of trouble.

So she chose a lie by omission and she shook her head.

"Why not?" May prompted gently.

"Because it doesn't matter. I'll never do it again."

Those were the last words Rory would say for the next three days. 

Those days she was admitted to a SHIELD hospital and subjected to whatever medical test they deemed necessary to determine her health. Every test spiked Rory's adrenaline and the doctors did note the way she flinched when anyone came near her. 

Agent Melinda May stayed in the hospital those three days, keeping an eye on the girl. Either in the room or through a window. 

"She has no family. Her mother and father went missing a year ago, same time she disappeared," Coulson told May, handing over a file. "Moved around South Africa. Took some trips with her mom. She was homeschooled too. And we can't find any living relatives."

"So, where is she going?"

"She'll be in SHIELD custody for the foreseeable future."

"Custody? Coulson, she's just a girl."

"A girl who we recovered footage of and she was moving things with her mind."

"Is that really a good idea? She's been imprisoned for a year." May focused back on looking through the glass at Rory. "Keeping her in SHIELD custody is only going to make her retreat further into herself."

"She's young and she could cause problems without SHIELD keeping an eye on her."

"Then place her with me. In a real home."

"May, you're a full-time field agent."

"Then I'll take time off. She'd still be in SHIELD custody but she'd have the chance to actually live a life."

✴︎

Some negotiation later and Rory was released into Agent May's custody. The first few weeks were rough. Rory didn't say much and spent many hours staring blankly out windows. Then SHIELD informed May that they'd acquired the belongings of Rory and her family. Well, the belongings that they could find. 

When May told Rory about this, Rory lit up, looking more alive than she had in a long while. Rory was willing to look through the stuff. 

When she stepped into that room in the SHIELD building, Rory was hit with waves of emotions. She forced herself to swallow the hard lump of emotion in her throat.

"You okay, Rory?" May asked gently, placing a hand on Rory's back. Rory looked at May and nodded. 

"I've got it."

Rory looked at the things, meager possessions compared to what she remembered. But these possessions were all the important ones. 

Rory gravitated towards a small jewellery box first. 

"We found a lot of the stuff in hiding places. Under floor boards, secret rooms, it was pretty weird," Coulson informed May as they watched Rory sift through the belongings. "Also puzzle boxes that we can't seem to crack."

As he said that, Rory managed to get a secret compartment in the jewellery box to open and she pulled out a ring. A ring that fit onto her index and middle fingers. 

That was the very first time that May saw Rory smile.

"Rory, how'd you know how to get into that box?" Coulson asked. Rory's smile fell away and she looked much more serious. 

"Um, my mom taught me," Rory answered, an unmistakable quiver of her lower lip evident. "It's a family heirloom."

They let her browse a little longer before Coulson asked another question.

"Your parents had a lot of hiding places."

"It was South Africa," Rory answered with a slight shrug. Then she smiled when she found some of her parents' books. That smile grew as she flipped through the pages of a book that was about astral projection.

"Your parents had interesting hobbies."

"My father was an anthropology professor," Rory paused, thinking about how to phrase what her mother did. "My mother believed in the supernatural."

"Did your mother believe because of what you can do?"

Rory shut down immediately after that and didn't say another word. Then May took her back home with all of her belongings. Before they left the car, Rory said something.

"My mother believed before me and she wasn't shocked when I...got my...powers." Rory paused, her breath hitching. "I know SHIELD's concerned with what I can do. They don't need to be because I'm never using them again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed that chapter into Rory's being saved by SHIELD. You have a lot more chapters like this to look forward to.  
> ♡Dani


End file.
